Svitolina Defends Dubai and Van Uytvanck Wins Title in Budapest

(February 24, 2018) Elina Svitolina defended her Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title on Saturday with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Daria Kasatkina in 70 minutes.

Svitolina is the third player in the 18-year history of the WTA event to successfully defend her title, after Justine Henin in 2004 and Venus Williams in 2010.

“It feels great,” said Svitolina. “I am very pleased with the performance throughout the week. When I had to play well, I played well, important moments. I was serving good, returning well, getting lots of balls back. It was solid performance, I would say. Okay, maybe not amazing tennis, but I was pretty solid. It was enough.

“Yeah, I really enjoyed. It was tough battle in the first set. I was going through tough moments. She was fighting really, really hard. Yeah, was high intensity. But I was pleased the way I handle it.”

“I think Elina, she was the toughest opponent for this final,” said Kasatkina, who on Monday will be ranked in the top 20 for the first time. “Yeah, she was playing really good during all week. In the final, she show I think her best tennis. It was really tough. (But I take) only positive things, of course. I mean, I spent amazing 12 hours on the central court. Yeah, I won four unbelievable matches. Yeah, okay, I didn’t have enough for the final, but still it was very nice week.”

The doubles title went to the unseeded pair of Hao-Ching Chan and Zhaoxuan Yang, who defeated fourth seeds Su-Wei Hsieh and Shuai Peng 4-6 6-2 10-6.

Belgian Alison van Uytvanck won her second career WTA singles title at the Hungarian Ladies Open on Sunday beating No.1 seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.